It is common in mining operations to utilize a mobile drilling platform for drilling holes in various earth formations for the placement of explosives, for example, for the loosening of earth to be removed by excavation. During the drilling of a hole in a formation, compressed air may be used to flush cuttings out of the hole being drilled. Due to health and environmental concerns the cuttings being flushed out of the hole may be gathered and filtered to limit their released into the environment. A dust collection system may be utilized with the mobile drill unit and may comprise a pickup, a pre-skimmer or centrifugal separator and a dust collector. The dust collector establishes a vacuum that draws the cuttings into the dust pickup pot, through the pre-skimmer and into the dust collector itself.
The pre-skimmer is designed to separate larger cuttings that will drop through a bottom chute with smaller and lighter particles continuing to the dust collector where there are filtered from the air flow by mechanical means such as filters. For the pre-skimmer to work most efficiently, and to avoid clogging, it should be mounted vertically, with respect to the ground, in order for the larger/heavier particles separated from the cuttings to drop out of a bottom chute.
Since drilling may often occur in a non-vertical orientation it is often necessary to reorient the pre-skimmer, with respect to the drill feed, in order to maintain its desired vertical orientation. Such reorientation of the pre-skimmer in the field may be time consuming, thereby lowering operational efficiency.